Building a bankroll

[Nate]

Hey guys,

My names Nate I’m 22 years old and I’ve been playing live poker for about a year now. I was a total fish when I started playing. I’ve learned, grown, and developed my game drastically in one year and unfortunately I can’t say much for myself because I’m broke again. I have a solid strategy, I generally have a good live read on my opponents but when push comes to shove I can’t build and sustain a bankroll. I love playing, but a max buy in is 30% of my paycheck, so if I lose that $300 I can’t play again for 2 weeks. I’d love some advice. What should I do to build a roll. Should I save up for a few months and save up a few thousand to have a cushion, instead of playing paycheck to paycheck? I have the drive to beat this game, and I don’t really go on tilt, but me being a young kid that’s new to the game and limited life experience, I’d like opinions and any constructive criticism any of you that have been in my shoes before. Thanks, and much love ladies and gents,

Nate

[Han]

Hi Nate. I was in a similar situation playing from my paycheck. I felt like a gambling degenerate some times playing from paycheck-to-paycheck. However, going broke in poker when you have a job as an out, is not the worst bad beat. You just have to be really careful not to punt away your entire paycheck in one session due to tilt.

If you advanced your game this far you should probably log more hours at the table. And you should do so in a comfortable way. Taking 2 weeks off from just losing one buy-in, I don’t think is ideal for you to progress your game. You should have a proper BR to handle those session swings and still be able to log hours in on the felt.

I would strongly suggest taking those few months and saving up a BR. You could spend that time off the felt to study and work on your game. As for the BR and BR management I followed Jaman Burtons suggestion, which is a modified version of Chris Fergusons BR challenge rules. I’ll link the video here. For my example:

I play at $1-3 NL $500 cap.
I saved 10 max buy-ins before I played this stake
I converted my entire BR to casino chips
I play at least 10 hours a week
I only bring 2 max buy-ins to the game
I leave the game if I’m up 2 buy-ins (which hasn’t happened yet)
Every 4 hours I play, I would study for 1 hour

I’ve been playing with this BR since May. My BR took a hit due to bad plays and making mistakes, but I’ve been able to handle the the session swings and learning to play better. I also do not have to worry about “should I pay my bills or get a session in tonight with this paycheck?” I hope you never ask yourself that if you have a BR.

Good luck buddy!

[David Wibel]

Hello Nate, welcome. The psychology of the bankroll is one of the fascinating things for me about poker. There are a number of things I want to touch on so I am sorry but this is likely to get long. I have worked in and around the financial world for a number of years so money management is near to my head and heart. I will be going over my thoughts on starting, maintaining and utilizing a bankroll.

The beginnings of a bankroll: Like the vast majority of people you don’t have thousands of dollars around that you can take and set aside and be fine. And based on your what you have said your budget is it will take you a long time to build a comfortable 1/2 or 1/3 bankroll without playing poker. So I have a couple of recommendations and keep in mind, these are my own opinions.

1) Don’t play for a while. If you are comfortable putting away $200-300 every two weeks to poker instead of retirement savings do that. I still recommend putting some money away for retirement, even $50 helps. At your age, thanks to compounding interest $50 now will be around $350 by the time you are 62 with 5% RoR. However, this will take about 12 months to build of a comfortable starting bankroll of 20-25 buy ins but by that point you won’t be taking from your life roll at your job so you won’t be struggling for things like rent and food while you play.
2) Play low stakes live tournaments while building. If your casino offers like $50-100 tournaments these may be a good idea to play in once every two weeks while putting the rest away for poker. Because cashing in tournaments is so much harder than cash games you are likely losing your buy-in but you aren’t losing a full cash game buy-in and still playing poker. Thank take any cashes from the tournaments and add it to the bankroll.
3) Keep playing but only every two weeks. This one has the potential to take forever to build a ban bankroll but you will be playing poker. I don’t know if you are playing 1/2 or 1/3 but buy in for say 100 big blinds after you put in your $300 to your bankroll. Then once you are done with your session put whatever is remaining regardless of if you are up $1000 or down to just $5 into your bankroll. But only play once every two weeks. Continue this until you have built up a comfortable bankroll and then you don’t have to inject it with money from outside of poker. Don’t feel obligated to buy in for the max either. I have bought in for 66 Big Blinds to 1/3 just because I am comfortable with 2 bullets of $200 than 1 of $300 and one of $100 to top of. Then adjust to a bit tighter with your opening and play ABC from there.

Maintaining your Bankroll:

Once you have build up your first bankroll there are a few things to consider on how to use it. You need to decide, how much am I comfortable losing at once, at what point to I want to realize my gains, and at what point do I want to move up in stakes or down in stakes. The first is simply, how many buy ins can I lose without it affecting me mentally. Some people are fine with losing 4-5 in a night but others may only be able to take 2 buy ins before it starts affecting them. It’s going to be a personal choice but I recommend a lower number like 2 while you are still building or it is small. The second is if you are up a large amount of money when do you take it and run for that session. I recommend either using a percentage of your bankroll or a number of buy-ins. Something like, never having more than 20% of your bank roll at risk (or $600 at a bankroll of $3000). This just helps you lock in winning sessions more frequently. The third part is when to move stakes. This is going to take a lot of trial and error, especially because when you first move up due to games being harder and bigger buyins you are likely to have fewer winning sessions and your losing sessions are likely to be bigger. I would say look to moving up when you have built up 25-30 buy ins at the new stake and maybe take a shot or two but wait until it’s closer to 40 buy ins. Then drop down once you are down to only 20 buy ins. Again, it’s all about preserving your bankroll and keeping you at ease.

Utilizing your bankroll: This is going to be a personal question, why do you want to play poker? A good idea may be to have some short term and long term goals other than just moving up and down in stakes. Something like, save up for a new phone or a ring for your significant other to propose. Maybe you want to save for a nice cruise or vacation and can save for it through poker. Whatever the reason have an objective in mind. I would recommend whenever you have a winning session round down to the nearest hundred and put that aside. Say you bought in for $300 and walk out with $562. Take $500 back into your bankroll and the $62 goes into savings. I would recommend putting half into a short term goal and half into retirement but you can make your own decisions.

Just remember, any winnings regardless of size you have from poker are taxable income. Keep records of your sessions, even something as simple as an excel spreadsheet. If you don’t report your winnings and you get audited you could get yourself into some trouble. Losses can be an itemized deduction but with a $12,000 deduction for a single tax filer in 2018 it’s unlikely you will exceed this.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by David Wibel.

[Zach]

Some good information here… but it’s a lot to take in. To answer your question as someone who is 24 and was in a similiar spot.. saving up before you play is the correct move here. Save at least 2500-3K in your case. Use the time away from the table to study and get better.. and when you’ve saved enough, go to the table and put in some quality hours. And if you’re tilting or playing poorly… walk away! Easier said than done but it’s a bankroll saver

[William Arrington]

I would recommend doing MTT at your local casino. I like the 120 to 160 range bounty. If you play right you will end up in later rounds and even if you dont win you can still take a few bounties. This will help you build to the next buyin. Just remember Ante’s matter and they will eat your stack and be mindful of who is behind you before you shove. Bounties alter peoples actions and someone will call your all in if they have you covered for a chance at your bounty.

[Author]

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